comment by Jim Duffy (U1734)
posted 1 hour, 21 minutes ago
Reform are too left wing. Didn't they cancel some of their candidates for saying it like it is. What happened to free speech. We need a proper right wing party.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Reform voters: "He's only saying what we're all thinking"
Also Reform voters: "He's an actor planted by Channel 4"
comment by Bill. Not much of a Spurs Fan or 606er (U23088)
posted 2 hours, 11 minutes ago
comment by JustCallMeTed (U21528)
posted 22 minutes ago
You guys should be far more scared of Donald J Trump winning in the USA.
.............
----------------------------------------------------------------------
He's a huge favourite now.
Biden is 8/1 with Ladbrokes tonight
----------------------------------------------------------------------
what are Ladbrokes odd on Trump?
comment by Darren The String Fletcher (U10026)
posted 2 hours ago
comment by JustCallMeTed (U21528)
posted 34 minutes ago
You guys should be far more scared of Donald J Trump winning in the USA.
.............
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Why? Trump doesn’t set British policy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You have no idea how UK politicians will dance to Trump's tunes.
Sorry, I forgot you have dementia.
Not voting but would have voted labour if i lived there.
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 6 hours, 53 minutes ago
Yeah, obviously compared to Corbyn, Labour is much further to the right. I was looking relative to a longer timescale - perhaps because it seems to me that Corbynism was a bit of an aberration within our political culture. I'd also say being dragged from there to the right is not just about the Tories. Obviously, it's got a lot to do with the prevailing political media culture framing the agenda on right-wing terms. But it's also a function of political failures of Corbyn and his team. He had an opportunity to mainstream a genuinely popular economic agenda but was unwilling to pragmatically pick his battles, alienated people with things like his reaction to Salisbury, etc.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't blame Corbyn. The Tories also alienated people and whole entire communities even, condoned racists and had racists in power and a lot of other despicable sheet and still managed to beat Corbyn.
Corbyn was not perfect of course but his defeat was more to do with the nature of this country rather than Corbyn's failings.
I feel people blame Corbyn when the don't want to accept the truth about this country. If you show people that racism and other despicable things are OK, then people start to show their true colours, which they keep hidden from society because they know society frowns on such.
The zest and enthusiasm with which the Tories dominated and win elections cannot be blamed on Corbyn. They were emptying the coffers right in front of our faces and ruining the country but people didn't care so long as they got rid of the black and brown people.
Fact is people loved and voted for the Tories because of stuff like Windrush. People didn't say it but they liked the Tories and kept them in power as they're the only ones with a vision to protect Britishness and get rid of brown people.
Corbyn had the best policies and everybody knew, but he would also have let in the black and brown people and we can't have that, even of it means unprecedented economic success.
comment by Darren The String Fletcher (U10026)
posted 4 hours, 35 minutes ago
Sorry, I forgot you have dementia.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
only a total ignoramus would have your memory!
Unprecedented economic success under corbyn oh give me strength
Figures to bear in mind as you vote:
1 million kids in destitution
3.7 million people with "very low food security"
150k kids in temporary accommodation
1.3 million families on social housing waiting lists
7.6 million on NHS waiting lists
Don’t be scared of fake news.
Everyone needs to vote Reform today.
Have a backbone and do the right thing.
comment by Critical Supe Theory (U1282)
posted 3 hours, 20 minutes ago
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 6 hours, 53 minutes ago
Yeah, obviously compared to Corbyn, Labour is much further to the right. I was looking relative to a longer timescale - perhaps because it seems to me that Corbynism was a bit of an aberration within our political culture. I'd also say being dragged from there to the right is not just about the Tories. Obviously, it's got a lot to do with the prevailing political media culture framing the agenda on right-wing terms. But it's also a function of political failures of Corbyn and his team. He had an opportunity to mainstream a genuinely popular economic agenda but was unwilling to pragmatically pick his battles, alienated people with things like his reaction to Salisbury, etc.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't blame Corbyn. The Tories also alienated people and whole entire communities even, condoned racists and had racists in power and a lot of other despicable sheet and still managed to beat Corbyn.
Corbyn was not perfect of course but his defeat was more to do with the nature of this country rather than Corbyn's failings.
I feel people blame Corbyn when the don't want to accept the truth about this country. If you show people that racism and other despicable things are OK, then people start to show their true colours, which they keep hidden from society because they know society frowns on such.
The zest and enthusiasm with which the Tories dominated and win elections cannot be blamed on Corbyn. They were emptying the coffers right in front of our faces and ruining the country but people didn't care so long as they got rid of the black and brown people.
Fact is people loved and voted for the Tories because of stuff like Windrush. People didn't say it but they liked the Tories and kept them in power as they're the only ones with a vision to protect Britishness and get rid of brown people.
Corbyn had the best policies and everybody knew, but he would also have let in the black and brown people and we can't have that, even of it means unprecedented economic success.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I'd say the number 1 reason is money.
The left's a large family, in which the so-called 'moderates' are in the hands of corporate and media interests.
That's why they also happen to be the ones capable of bringing in the most funds, the ones who have the biggest sway on the media.
Right from the start, whether they needed directing by their overlords or whether it was all of their own doing, they made it clear that Corbyn would not be tolerated. Without their support, he didn't have a chance in hell of winning. The campaign of character destruction was relentless, and came just as much from the 'left-wing' media as it did from the right.
And that's the state of virtually every capitalist democracy. Capital first. Democracy as an afterthought.
I'm writing from the perspective of someone who broadly agreed with Corbyn's policy platform (though not the kneejerk apologism for autocrats associated with figures around Corbyn like Seamus Milne). It's absolutely true that the political discourse and the mainstream media is tilted severely in favour of the interests of big money. I wasn't arguing that Corbyn was solely to blame for the failure of his project. But I do strongly believe that lack of introspection on the left as to what we can do to advance social democratic policies (which as we know are actually popular with the electorate) and unwillingness to learn lessons about what Corbyn's team could have done better to sell their platform aren't conducive to improving the world in the future. Too many of the left are dwelling on the past - the unfairness of the outcome of Corbyn's leadership, the stab-in-the-back narrative, etc. when we ought to be thinking about what we can do - in this hostile environment - to bring about movement toward a more egalitarian, humane world.
The media landscape will always favour the Right. In the current electoral system, the Labour party will always be a broad church with a strong centrist contingent. The Labour party will always be factional. Corbyn's faction wasn't a model of collegiate pluralism, just as the right of the party wasn't and isn't. These are realities we have to live with, and I think advancing left-wing outcomes relies on coming up with strategies that accept this reality rather than raging against it. For a start:
- Focus on advocating policy. Too much energy is wasted on largely symbolic denunciations, on decrying those who have betrayed the cause, on "centrism" and too little on setting out a concrete agenda. It also makes it easy to frame the Left as marginal angry people, rather than a platform that has its eyes fixed on practically improving the material conditions in which people live.
- Pick battles that are winnable. Of course, you can go too far in the cause of electability and end up imitating the Tories. But you can also choose total ideological purity in every instance and give the Tories ammunition to win a landslide. The goal is to find the sweet spot where you can put together the most progressive platform that is capable of attracting a governing coalition. My impression is that John McDonnell's instincts were sharper than Corbyn's in this respect, in terms of understanding how far to go and having a sense of what policies were politically damaging. The economic offering of Labour was pretty popular; Corbyn's ambivalence about things like the Salisbury poisonings was extremely off-putting. Most of us on the Left do feel very ambivalent, to say the least, about Western foreign policy adventures, etc. I'd argue that there should be moral clarity about a Russian tyrant murdering people in the UK, but the point here is that Corbyn would have been smart to set aside his nuance, understand that he was already politically vulnerable to (yes, bad faith) accusations of lack of patriotism, and take a clear stance against the vicious authoritarian. That's one example among many when some adaptation of his political stance / messaging could have neutralised attack lines - and god knows that in the landscape he was operating in, he didn't need to give his enemies material. We need to be smarter about focusing on outcomes: was equivocating about Salisbury more likely or less likely to bring about a Labour government (including a Corbynite anti-imperialist foreign policy)? I would say the latter.
The Left needs to be laser focused on impact, and intellectually curious about how to achieve it. We have a weakness for righteous indignation, and we're therefore prone to grandstanding, and I'm afraid that's one of the other advantages the Right possesses.
I don't agree with Corbyns policies and couldn't vote for him but he wanted too much roo quickly. He knew the electorate were worried about the cost of his plans and he should have made it more long term.
comment by rosso says the time has come to unlock the unlimited Pote-ntial of the Fernçalvenoo triumvirate (U17054)
posted 9 hours, 37 minutes ago
comment by Silver (U6112)
posted 3 minutes ago
comment by rosso says the time has come to unlock the unlimited Pote-ntial of the Fernçalvenoo triumvirate (U17054)
posted 2 hours, 7 minutes ago
comment by Silver (U6112)
posted 15 minutes ago
comment by rosso says the time has come to unlock the unlimited Pote-ntial of the Fernçalvenoo triumvirate (U17054)
posted 5 hours, 40 minutes ago
I’d love to know what the Reform voters on here think about:
1. Austerity (given that rather than invest more in public services, Reform want to further shrink the size of the state)
2. Brexit (given that Farage’s vision was, and is, of a harder exit, which economists near universally agree would have had an even more severe immediate economic impact)
3. The potential economic impacts of simultaneously introducing a Zero Net Immigration policy and actioning larger tax cuts than those pledged by the Kwarteng budget which crashed the economy
Please don’t be shy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I’m no reform voter but re #1 why would that be any issue? We’ve had virtually full employment through the last 4 crisis. We need to up productivity to match or beat similar nations and I see nobody with policies to do that.
I once read there were 30,000 people administering national insurance in the country! We all know it is just a tax. Its relevance has fallen away. Average wage say £30k and there’s £900m a year saving.
TV license, abolish it. 5% of it goes on administration. Evasion is rampant and rising inexorably. Thanks another £200m a year.
Politicos are obsessed with the message of cutting headline taxes whilst raising indirect taxes which due to their size are inefficient to administer. Even the OBR recognises overall taxes have gone up. Clapham man only sees the headlines. Yes there will be bleating from some weirdos why they should pay when they’ve never had a tv yeah right but fck it no different to local taxes when you don’t have kids or use the library, tough sh.t.
Shortage of trades. offer free, centralised training and support and assistance after training to buy the van, tools, phone centre & accounting support. Will payback like student loans and you’ll earn a damn sight more than average plus inflation will drop as trades demand is met. Franchises can do it for £30-40k why not government?
Nobody offering real, practical solutions like this. Frustrating.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Because 100 years of empirical data has shown us, categorically, that you can’t cut your way out of an economic slump, and the harder you cut, the worse the mire you end up in.
See Britain and Germany in the 1920s (which ultimately delivered us the Naazis), Japan in the 1920s, Hoover in the 1930s (the worst depression in US history), Denmark, Australia and Ireland in the 1980s, half of Europe through the 2000s, and the Tories’ Austerity 1.0 and Austerity 2.0.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It's not cuts for cuts sake. It is improving productivity. You missed the point completely. My bad no doubt.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Austerity was cuts for cuts sake, though. As is Reform’s agenda.
I don’t disagree with you about efficiency and productivity, in principle. The UK could take lessons from various other states about how public sector reform and private sector investment could help deliver both of those things, certainly
But the overarching point is that to escape economic stagnation, the UK needed stimulus, not cuts; it needed to maintain public spending (and yes, it could have been redirected between various areas - civil service efficiencies could certainly have helped fund infrastructure renewal, for example), maintain the employment rate, and get money circulating around the economy.
Taxing an axe to spending did more than destroy public services, leave infrastructure to rot, widen the wealth divide, and leave record numbers of people on waiting lists and using food banks. It also turned the UK economy into one of the least attractive long-term investment options in the G20 and left an already struggling manufacturing sector, one the country desperately needed firing - and will continue to need - floundering and now without any base to build from.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We're on the same page. All public spending is paid for by private enterprise. Or borrowing, of course but we are getting to the point of being 'maxed out on our credit cards' as a country. So, stimulus, yes. but our wiggle room is slim to make appreciable difference else you are back at Trussenomics.
We can only fund better public services by what we can generate by improved private GDP but I still say nothing should be off the table and I gave some potential examples. We need radical reform (small r) and not tinkering which is what STarmer is offering. My only hope is bolder once he gets in with respect to the promise U-turns that every party make soon as they are elected.
As for Reform (large R) dangerous lunatics by and large. However, what Farage has been good about in the past is shouting about the ridiculous things that take place in the EU with spending being #1 even if he contributed to that. EU budget is €2trn! UK GDP is €3trn - does it really need / take 2/3 of UK plc to 'run' the EU? And the bulk of the infrastructure and employment of it benefitting mainland Europe in Brussels, Frankfurt, Strasbourg etc. 2010 UK was 12% of the EU by population but 1% of the employees. Other countries have similar scepticism over its enlargement away from the EEC but I digress, not the route to go down, just the point that services need paid for and we do need efficiencies, targeted investment and just shouting 'austerity' and no cuts being off the table is unreasonable imho.
The Conservative Party has at times adopted left-leaning policies as a response to changing public opinion or an attempt to appeal to a broader electorate, but they’ve not fundamentally shifted from the centre-right.
Expect we’ll see much the same from Labour if they hope to govern beyond this first term.
I think Starmer is more left wing than he is letting on but has decided he needs to take a more right/central approach to be electable. It would not surprise me after the honeymoon is finished, he starts taking the government more to the left, although not as far as Corbyn of course.
Also, I think the left of the labour party are stomaching his more right leaning policies because they accept that they won't get elected under a corbyn style manifesto even taking into account the chaos under the tories. So I feel or suspect they are siding with Starmers more right leaning plan to get elected with the ambition of steering Starmer more to left once in Government.
I think Starmer will make it through one term as the Labour party wont want to appear to be the same as the tories by changing leader, so the left will keep him there with more right leaning labour through gritted teeth. Of course with the hope of guiding him more to the left slowly.
Its after 2029 where I think that the Corbynistas/Momemtum/left labour MPs will start demanding change and more socialist/left wing policies and this is where I could see an Angela Raynor asking him to step down
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 3 minutes ago
I'm writing from the perspective of someone who broadly agreed with Corbyn's policy platform (though not the kneejerk apologism for autocrats associated with figures around Corbyn like Seamus Milne). It's absolutely true that the political discourse and the mainstream media is tilted severely in favour of the interests of big money. I wasn't arguing that Corbyn was solely to blame for the failure of his project. But I do strongly believe that lack of introspection on the left as to what we can do to advance social democratic policies (which as we know are actually popular with the electorate) and unwillingness to learn lessons about what Corbyn's team could have done better to sell their platform aren't conducive to improving the world in the future. Too many of the left are dwelling on the past - the unfairness of the outcome of Corbyn's leadership, the stab-in-the-back narrative, etc. when we ought to be thinking about what we can do - in this hostile environment - to bring about movement toward a more egalitarian, humane world.
The media landscape will always favour the Right. In the current electoral system, the Labour party will always be a broad church with a strong centrist contingent. The Labour party will always be factional. Corbyn's faction wasn't a model of collegiate pluralism, just as the right of the party wasn't and isn't. These are realities we have to live with, and I think advancing left-wing outcomes relies on coming up with strategies that accept this reality rather than raging against it. For a start:
- Focus on advocating policy. Too much energy is wasted on largely symbolic denunciations, on decrying those who have betrayed the cause, on "centrism" and too little on setting out a concrete agenda. It also makes it easy to frame the Left as marginal angry people, rather than a platform that has its eyes fixed on practically improving the material conditions in which people live.
- Pick battles that are winnable. Of course, you can go too far in the cause of electability and end up imitating the Tories. But you can also choose total ideological purity in every instance and give the Tories ammunition to win a landslide. The goal is to find the sweet spot where you can put together the most progressive platform that is capable of attracting a governing coalition. My impression is that John McDonnell's instincts were sharper than Corbyn's in this respect, in terms of understanding how far to go and having a sense of what policies were politically damaging. The economic offering of Labour was pretty popular; Corbyn's ambivalence about things like the Salisbury poisonings was extremely off-putting. Most of us on the Left do feel very ambivalent, to say the least, about Western foreign policy adventures, etc. I'd argue that there should be moral clarity about a Russian tyrant murdering people in the UK, but the point here is that Corbyn would have been smart to set aside his nuance, understand that he was already politically vulnerable to (yes, bad faith) accusations of lack of patriotism, and take a clear stance against the vicious authoritarian. That's one example among many when some adaptation of his political stance / messaging could have neutralised attack lines - and god knows that in the landscape he was operating in, he didn't need to give his enemies material. We need to be smarter about focusing on outcomes: was equivocating about Salisbury more likely or less likely to bring about a Labour government (including a Corbynite anti-imperialist foreign policy)? I would say the latter.
The Left needs to be laser focused on impact, and intellectually curious about how to achieve it. We have a weakness for righteous indignation, and we're therefore prone to grandstanding, and I'm afraid that's one of the other advantages the Right possesses.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I humbly disagree with a small bit of this. The lefts biggest weakness is that it eats itself from within while the right tends to unite and stick together. Corbyn was left to fry because the left are so righteous that they have to distance themselves from an anti semitic vibe at any cost.
The right don't have such standards. Are you a racist? Get in here! Are you a xenophobe? Get in here! You want to lower the age of consent? Get in here! You think women's rights are silly? Get in here!
Your views here are exactly how the left eats itself IMO. The Right and the Tories do all these things too. They grandstand on topics like immigration and welfare and soak up all the adoration and adulation that brings them in this country. They do all those things the left does, and then some.
Even Labour supporters use the excuse of Corbynism for him losing, when even that Corbyn was still patently much better than the Tories and we had seen that for almost 10 years at the time. Fact is, too many people just liked what the Tories were saying about certain specific cultural issues so much so that those issues became the priority, overriding all other concerns for the economy or otherwise.
Ultimately, I feel the leanings of the populace and the people themselves is where the difference lies. It's not anything either party does. I could argue that there is a reluctance to accept that the right is just more attractive to more people in this country than the left, for whatever reason that may be.
There are studies that suggest and demonstrate that the less intelligent an individual is, the more likely they are to be attracted to right wing concepts, and vice versa. Right wing concepts offer simple, direct and mentally effortless explanations to otherwise complex questions that may have otherwise required serious consideration, and this is attractive to many.
Like Farage pointing people's gazes at immigration to deflect from the Tories and the super rich ruining the country. Look how many are into that? It's basically hopeless at this point. The country just isn't producing enough individuals with the wherewithal or concern to critically analyse and understand these things. It's all about waves and trends it seems.
The real debate should be the voting system
Labour are about to get their biggest majority in history and only the second in history to the Whig party with just 39% of the vote which was less than Corbyn's 2017 total who lost
When will people realise:
Neither red or blue
Have a _____ clue
2*
comment by Emperor Kami (U9880)
posted 1 minute ago
The real debate should be the voting system
Labour are about to get their biggest majority in history and only the second in history to the Whig party with just 39% of the vote which was less than Corbyn's 2017 total who lost
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That's some paradox right there.
comment by 1 Father- 1 Love - 2 Reds (U13312)
posted 51 seconds ago
When will people realise:
Neither red or blue
Have a _____ clue
2*
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Out of interest, what do you think Reform would have done, or would do going forwards, which is radically different from the Tories?
comment by Critical Supe Theory (U1282)
posted 1 minute ago
comment by Emperor Kami (U9880)
posted 1 minute ago
The real debate should be the voting system
Labour are about to get their biggest majority in history and only the second in history to the Whig party with just 39% of the vote which was less than Corbyn's 2017 total who lost
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That's some paradox right there.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
i should have said the highest in labours history and 2nd highest in uk history
@RR, agree with pretty much all of that. I was just pointing out how limited the left-wing electorate is in terms of the policies that would be tolerated by the money men.
As for raging (in my case), if only. At least that would suggest a degree of energy that might yet be redirected for better use.
Unfortunately, though, my pessimism with regard to the medium term future has just sucked any such energy and enthusiasm for change out of me. The larger problems we face, as I see it, are of a systemic nature. While measures for clawing back some of the social advancements that have been lost in recent decades might serve to kick the can for a few years more, to me they're little more than cosmetic measures in the grand scheme.
Maybe I'm wrong, and the sensible thing is to try to buy enough time for our kids' generation to find more lasting solutions, and alleviate some suffering in the process. In fact, these feeblest of hopes are the main reason I keep voting - but as sad as it is, I have very little faith left in humankind.
comment by RB&W - He kicked lumps out of them (U21434)
posted 13 hours, 48 minutes ago
comment by Busby (U19985)
posted 3 hours, 43 minutes ago
comment by Irishred (U2539)
posted 3 hours, 41 minutes ago
If I was voting it would be green/independent
How anyone can vote Tory or even worse reform hurts my brain
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I'd hazard a guess that those with wealth, pensions and anti immigration agendas will vote Tories or Reform.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I know plenty of people with wealth and pensions who wont dream of voting Conservative or Reform. Thats like saying only poor people vote Labour. Most people in the UK are thick. Poor or wealthy.
FFS Busby you and your blue rinced geriatric friends gave us Liz Truss. You dont know what you are talking about really do you?.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
My friends or myself are not Tory members, so no we didn't vote Truss in.
I also won't be voting Tory, if that helps.
However it's fairly obvious people with wealth come out of a Labour run government poorer. They'll tax pensions (getting rid of the 25% tax free lump sum), they'll tax inheritance, they'll increase council tax, they'll remove free TV licence for pensioners, they'll increase duties.
I've always said I don't mind paying more tax if it's well spent. However, I don't trust any of the existing candidates to do that. Government spending is appalling, I've seen it.
Let's be honest, this Labour regime isn't anything ground breaking. They've a bunch of targets in their manifesto that are unachievable without making more money from taxpayers.
I won't argue that Tories are any better though, because they aren't.
Sign in if you want to comment
JA606 Opinion Poll - RESULTS OUT
Page 5 of 9
6 | 7 | 8 | 9
posted on 4/7/24
comment by Jim Duffy (U1734)
posted 1 hour, 21 minutes ago
Reform are too left wing. Didn't they cancel some of their candidates for saying it like it is. What happened to free speech. We need a proper right wing party.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Reform voters: "He's only saying what we're all thinking"
Also Reform voters: "He's an actor planted by Channel 4"
posted on 4/7/24
comment by Bill. Not much of a Spurs Fan or 606er (U23088)
posted 2 hours, 11 minutes ago
comment by JustCallMeTed (U21528)
posted 22 minutes ago
You guys should be far more scared of Donald J Trump winning in the USA.
.............
----------------------------------------------------------------------
He's a huge favourite now.
Biden is 8/1 with Ladbrokes tonight
----------------------------------------------------------------------
what are Ladbrokes odd on Trump?
posted on 4/7/24
comment by Darren The String Fletcher (U10026)
posted 2 hours ago
comment by JustCallMeTed (U21528)
posted 34 minutes ago
You guys should be far more scared of Donald J Trump winning in the USA.
.............
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Why? Trump doesn’t set British policy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You have no idea how UK politicians will dance to Trump's tunes.
posted on 4/7/24
Sorry, I forgot you have dementia.
posted on 4/7/24
Not voting but would have voted labour if i lived there.
posted on 4/7/24
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 6 hours, 53 minutes ago
Yeah, obviously compared to Corbyn, Labour is much further to the right. I was looking relative to a longer timescale - perhaps because it seems to me that Corbynism was a bit of an aberration within our political culture. I'd also say being dragged from there to the right is not just about the Tories. Obviously, it's got a lot to do with the prevailing political media culture framing the agenda on right-wing terms. But it's also a function of political failures of Corbyn and his team. He had an opportunity to mainstream a genuinely popular economic agenda but was unwilling to pragmatically pick his battles, alienated people with things like his reaction to Salisbury, etc.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't blame Corbyn. The Tories also alienated people and whole entire communities even, condoned racists and had racists in power and a lot of other despicable sheet and still managed to beat Corbyn.
Corbyn was not perfect of course but his defeat was more to do with the nature of this country rather than Corbyn's failings.
I feel people blame Corbyn when the don't want to accept the truth about this country. If you show people that racism and other despicable things are OK, then people start to show their true colours, which they keep hidden from society because they know society frowns on such.
The zest and enthusiasm with which the Tories dominated and win elections cannot be blamed on Corbyn. They were emptying the coffers right in front of our faces and ruining the country but people didn't care so long as they got rid of the black and brown people.
Fact is people loved and voted for the Tories because of stuff like Windrush. People didn't say it but they liked the Tories and kept them in power as they're the only ones with a vision to protect Britishness and get rid of brown people.
Corbyn had the best policies and everybody knew, but he would also have let in the black and brown people and we can't have that, even of it means unprecedented economic success.
posted on 4/7/24
comment by Darren The String Fletcher (U10026)
posted 4 hours, 35 minutes ago
Sorry, I forgot you have dementia.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
only a total ignoramus would have your memory!
posted on 4/7/24
Unprecedented economic success under corbyn oh give me strength
posted on 4/7/24
Figures to bear in mind as you vote:
1 million kids in destitution
3.7 million people with "very low food security"
150k kids in temporary accommodation
1.3 million families on social housing waiting lists
7.6 million on NHS waiting lists
posted on 4/7/24
Don’t be scared of fake news.
Everyone needs to vote Reform today.
Have a backbone and do the right thing.
posted on 4/7/24
Is the election today?
posted on 4/7/24
comment by Critical Supe Theory (U1282)
posted 3 hours, 20 minutes ago
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 6 hours, 53 minutes ago
Yeah, obviously compared to Corbyn, Labour is much further to the right. I was looking relative to a longer timescale - perhaps because it seems to me that Corbynism was a bit of an aberration within our political culture. I'd also say being dragged from there to the right is not just about the Tories. Obviously, it's got a lot to do with the prevailing political media culture framing the agenda on right-wing terms. But it's also a function of political failures of Corbyn and his team. He had an opportunity to mainstream a genuinely popular economic agenda but was unwilling to pragmatically pick his battles, alienated people with things like his reaction to Salisbury, etc.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't blame Corbyn. The Tories also alienated people and whole entire communities even, condoned racists and had racists in power and a lot of other despicable sheet and still managed to beat Corbyn.
Corbyn was not perfect of course but his defeat was more to do with the nature of this country rather than Corbyn's failings.
I feel people blame Corbyn when the don't want to accept the truth about this country. If you show people that racism and other despicable things are OK, then people start to show their true colours, which they keep hidden from society because they know society frowns on such.
The zest and enthusiasm with which the Tories dominated and win elections cannot be blamed on Corbyn. They were emptying the coffers right in front of our faces and ruining the country but people didn't care so long as they got rid of the black and brown people.
Fact is people loved and voted for the Tories because of stuff like Windrush. People didn't say it but they liked the Tories and kept them in power as they're the only ones with a vision to protect Britishness and get rid of brown people.
Corbyn had the best policies and everybody knew, but he would also have let in the black and brown people and we can't have that, even of it means unprecedented economic success.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I'd say the number 1 reason is money.
The left's a large family, in which the so-called 'moderates' are in the hands of corporate and media interests.
That's why they also happen to be the ones capable of bringing in the most funds, the ones who have the biggest sway on the media.
Right from the start, whether they needed directing by their overlords or whether it was all of their own doing, they made it clear that Corbyn would not be tolerated. Without their support, he didn't have a chance in hell of winning. The campaign of character destruction was relentless, and came just as much from the 'left-wing' media as it did from the right.
And that's the state of virtually every capitalist democracy. Capital first. Democracy as an afterthought.
posted on 4/7/24
I'm writing from the perspective of someone who broadly agreed with Corbyn's policy platform (though not the kneejerk apologism for autocrats associated with figures around Corbyn like Seamus Milne). It's absolutely true that the political discourse and the mainstream media is tilted severely in favour of the interests of big money. I wasn't arguing that Corbyn was solely to blame for the failure of his project. But I do strongly believe that lack of introspection on the left as to what we can do to advance social democratic policies (which as we know are actually popular with the electorate) and unwillingness to learn lessons about what Corbyn's team could have done better to sell their platform aren't conducive to improving the world in the future. Too many of the left are dwelling on the past - the unfairness of the outcome of Corbyn's leadership, the stab-in-the-back narrative, etc. when we ought to be thinking about what we can do - in this hostile environment - to bring about movement toward a more egalitarian, humane world.
The media landscape will always favour the Right. In the current electoral system, the Labour party will always be a broad church with a strong centrist contingent. The Labour party will always be factional. Corbyn's faction wasn't a model of collegiate pluralism, just as the right of the party wasn't and isn't. These are realities we have to live with, and I think advancing left-wing outcomes relies on coming up with strategies that accept this reality rather than raging against it. For a start:
- Focus on advocating policy. Too much energy is wasted on largely symbolic denunciations, on decrying those who have betrayed the cause, on "centrism" and too little on setting out a concrete agenda. It also makes it easy to frame the Left as marginal angry people, rather than a platform that has its eyes fixed on practically improving the material conditions in which people live.
- Pick battles that are winnable. Of course, you can go too far in the cause of electability and end up imitating the Tories. But you can also choose total ideological purity in every instance and give the Tories ammunition to win a landslide. The goal is to find the sweet spot where you can put together the most progressive platform that is capable of attracting a governing coalition. My impression is that John McDonnell's instincts were sharper than Corbyn's in this respect, in terms of understanding how far to go and having a sense of what policies were politically damaging. The economic offering of Labour was pretty popular; Corbyn's ambivalence about things like the Salisbury poisonings was extremely off-putting. Most of us on the Left do feel very ambivalent, to say the least, about Western foreign policy adventures, etc. I'd argue that there should be moral clarity about a Russian tyrant murdering people in the UK, but the point here is that Corbyn would have been smart to set aside his nuance, understand that he was already politically vulnerable to (yes, bad faith) accusations of lack of patriotism, and take a clear stance against the vicious authoritarian. That's one example among many when some adaptation of his political stance / messaging could have neutralised attack lines - and god knows that in the landscape he was operating in, he didn't need to give his enemies material. We need to be smarter about focusing on outcomes: was equivocating about Salisbury more likely or less likely to bring about a Labour government (including a Corbynite anti-imperialist foreign policy)? I would say the latter.
The Left needs to be laser focused on impact, and intellectually curious about how to achieve it. We have a weakness for righteous indignation, and we're therefore prone to grandstanding, and I'm afraid that's one of the other advantages the Right possesses.
posted on 4/7/24
I don't agree with Corbyns policies and couldn't vote for him but he wanted too much roo quickly. He knew the electorate were worried about the cost of his plans and he should have made it more long term.
posted on 4/7/24
comment by rosso says the time has come to unlock the unlimited Pote-ntial of the Fernçalvenoo triumvirate (U17054)
posted 9 hours, 37 minutes ago
comment by Silver (U6112)
posted 3 minutes ago
comment by rosso says the time has come to unlock the unlimited Pote-ntial of the Fernçalvenoo triumvirate (U17054)
posted 2 hours, 7 minutes ago
comment by Silver (U6112)
posted 15 minutes ago
comment by rosso says the time has come to unlock the unlimited Pote-ntial of the Fernçalvenoo triumvirate (U17054)
posted 5 hours, 40 minutes ago
I’d love to know what the Reform voters on here think about:
1. Austerity (given that rather than invest more in public services, Reform want to further shrink the size of the state)
2. Brexit (given that Farage’s vision was, and is, of a harder exit, which economists near universally agree would have had an even more severe immediate economic impact)
3. The potential economic impacts of simultaneously introducing a Zero Net Immigration policy and actioning larger tax cuts than those pledged by the Kwarteng budget which crashed the economy
Please don’t be shy.
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I’m no reform voter but re #1 why would that be any issue? We’ve had virtually full employment through the last 4 crisis. We need to up productivity to match or beat similar nations and I see nobody with policies to do that.
I once read there were 30,000 people administering national insurance in the country! We all know it is just a tax. Its relevance has fallen away. Average wage say £30k and there’s £900m a year saving.
TV license, abolish it. 5% of it goes on administration. Evasion is rampant and rising inexorably. Thanks another £200m a year.
Politicos are obsessed with the message of cutting headline taxes whilst raising indirect taxes which due to their size are inefficient to administer. Even the OBR recognises overall taxes have gone up. Clapham man only sees the headlines. Yes there will be bleating from some weirdos why they should pay when they’ve never had a tv yeah right but fck it no different to local taxes when you don’t have kids or use the library, tough sh.t.
Shortage of trades. offer free, centralised training and support and assistance after training to buy the van, tools, phone centre & accounting support. Will payback like student loans and you’ll earn a damn sight more than average plus inflation will drop as trades demand is met. Franchises can do it for £30-40k why not government?
Nobody offering real, practical solutions like this. Frustrating.
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Because 100 years of empirical data has shown us, categorically, that you can’t cut your way out of an economic slump, and the harder you cut, the worse the mire you end up in.
See Britain and Germany in the 1920s (which ultimately delivered us the Naazis), Japan in the 1920s, Hoover in the 1930s (the worst depression in US history), Denmark, Australia and Ireland in the 1980s, half of Europe through the 2000s, and the Tories’ Austerity 1.0 and Austerity 2.0.
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It's not cuts for cuts sake. It is improving productivity. You missed the point completely. My bad no doubt.
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Austerity was cuts for cuts sake, though. As is Reform’s agenda.
I don’t disagree with you about efficiency and productivity, in principle. The UK could take lessons from various other states about how public sector reform and private sector investment could help deliver both of those things, certainly
But the overarching point is that to escape economic stagnation, the UK needed stimulus, not cuts; it needed to maintain public spending (and yes, it could have been redirected between various areas - civil service efficiencies could certainly have helped fund infrastructure renewal, for example), maintain the employment rate, and get money circulating around the economy.
Taxing an axe to spending did more than destroy public services, leave infrastructure to rot, widen the wealth divide, and leave record numbers of people on waiting lists and using food banks. It also turned the UK economy into one of the least attractive long-term investment options in the G20 and left an already struggling manufacturing sector, one the country desperately needed firing - and will continue to need - floundering and now without any base to build from.
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We're on the same page. All public spending is paid for by private enterprise. Or borrowing, of course but we are getting to the point of being 'maxed out on our credit cards' as a country. So, stimulus, yes. but our wiggle room is slim to make appreciable difference else you are back at Trussenomics.
We can only fund better public services by what we can generate by improved private GDP but I still say nothing should be off the table and I gave some potential examples. We need radical reform (small r) and not tinkering which is what STarmer is offering. My only hope is bolder once he gets in with respect to the promise U-turns that every party make soon as they are elected.
As for Reform (large R) dangerous lunatics by and large. However, what Farage has been good about in the past is shouting about the ridiculous things that take place in the EU with spending being #1 even if he contributed to that. EU budget is €2trn! UK GDP is €3trn - does it really need / take 2/3 of UK plc to 'run' the EU? And the bulk of the infrastructure and employment of it benefitting mainland Europe in Brussels, Frankfurt, Strasbourg etc. 2010 UK was 12% of the EU by population but 1% of the employees. Other countries have similar scepticism over its enlargement away from the EEC but I digress, not the route to go down, just the point that services need paid for and we do need efficiencies, targeted investment and just shouting 'austerity' and no cuts being off the table is unreasonable imho.
posted on 4/7/24
The Conservative Party has at times adopted left-leaning policies as a response to changing public opinion or an attempt to appeal to a broader electorate, but they’ve not fundamentally shifted from the centre-right.
Expect we’ll see much the same from Labour if they hope to govern beyond this first term.
posted on 4/7/24
I think Starmer is more left wing than he is letting on but has decided he needs to take a more right/central approach to be electable. It would not surprise me after the honeymoon is finished, he starts taking the government more to the left, although not as far as Corbyn of course.
Also, I think the left of the labour party are stomaching his more right leaning policies because they accept that they won't get elected under a corbyn style manifesto even taking into account the chaos under the tories. So I feel or suspect they are siding with Starmers more right leaning plan to get elected with the ambition of steering Starmer more to left once in Government.
I think Starmer will make it through one term as the Labour party wont want to appear to be the same as the tories by changing leader, so the left will keep him there with more right leaning labour through gritted teeth. Of course with the hope of guiding him more to the left slowly.
Its after 2029 where I think that the Corbynistas/Momemtum/left labour MPs will start demanding change and more socialist/left wing policies and this is where I could see an Angela Raynor asking him to step down
posted on 4/7/24
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 3 minutes ago
I'm writing from the perspective of someone who broadly agreed with Corbyn's policy platform (though not the kneejerk apologism for autocrats associated with figures around Corbyn like Seamus Milne). It's absolutely true that the political discourse and the mainstream media is tilted severely in favour of the interests of big money. I wasn't arguing that Corbyn was solely to blame for the failure of his project. But I do strongly believe that lack of introspection on the left as to what we can do to advance social democratic policies (which as we know are actually popular with the electorate) and unwillingness to learn lessons about what Corbyn's team could have done better to sell their platform aren't conducive to improving the world in the future. Too many of the left are dwelling on the past - the unfairness of the outcome of Corbyn's leadership, the stab-in-the-back narrative, etc. when we ought to be thinking about what we can do - in this hostile environment - to bring about movement toward a more egalitarian, humane world.
The media landscape will always favour the Right. In the current electoral system, the Labour party will always be a broad church with a strong centrist contingent. The Labour party will always be factional. Corbyn's faction wasn't a model of collegiate pluralism, just as the right of the party wasn't and isn't. These are realities we have to live with, and I think advancing left-wing outcomes relies on coming up with strategies that accept this reality rather than raging against it. For a start:
- Focus on advocating policy. Too much energy is wasted on largely symbolic denunciations, on decrying those who have betrayed the cause, on "centrism" and too little on setting out a concrete agenda. It also makes it easy to frame the Left as marginal angry people, rather than a platform that has its eyes fixed on practically improving the material conditions in which people live.
- Pick battles that are winnable. Of course, you can go too far in the cause of electability and end up imitating the Tories. But you can also choose total ideological purity in every instance and give the Tories ammunition to win a landslide. The goal is to find the sweet spot where you can put together the most progressive platform that is capable of attracting a governing coalition. My impression is that John McDonnell's instincts were sharper than Corbyn's in this respect, in terms of understanding how far to go and having a sense of what policies were politically damaging. The economic offering of Labour was pretty popular; Corbyn's ambivalence about things like the Salisbury poisonings was extremely off-putting. Most of us on the Left do feel very ambivalent, to say the least, about Western foreign policy adventures, etc. I'd argue that there should be moral clarity about a Russian tyrant murdering people in the UK, but the point here is that Corbyn would have been smart to set aside his nuance, understand that he was already politically vulnerable to (yes, bad faith) accusations of lack of patriotism, and take a clear stance against the vicious authoritarian. That's one example among many when some adaptation of his political stance / messaging could have neutralised attack lines - and god knows that in the landscape he was operating in, he didn't need to give his enemies material. We need to be smarter about focusing on outcomes: was equivocating about Salisbury more likely or less likely to bring about a Labour government (including a Corbynite anti-imperialist foreign policy)? I would say the latter.
The Left needs to be laser focused on impact, and intellectually curious about how to achieve it. We have a weakness for righteous indignation, and we're therefore prone to grandstanding, and I'm afraid that's one of the other advantages the Right possesses.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I humbly disagree with a small bit of this. The lefts biggest weakness is that it eats itself from within while the right tends to unite and stick together. Corbyn was left to fry because the left are so righteous that they have to distance themselves from an anti semitic vibe at any cost.
The right don't have such standards. Are you a racist? Get in here! Are you a xenophobe? Get in here! You want to lower the age of consent? Get in here! You think women's rights are silly? Get in here!
Your views here are exactly how the left eats itself IMO. The Right and the Tories do all these things too. They grandstand on topics like immigration and welfare and soak up all the adoration and adulation that brings them in this country. They do all those things the left does, and then some.
Even Labour supporters use the excuse of Corbynism for him losing, when even that Corbyn was still patently much better than the Tories and we had seen that for almost 10 years at the time. Fact is, too many people just liked what the Tories were saying about certain specific cultural issues so much so that those issues became the priority, overriding all other concerns for the economy or otherwise.
Ultimately, I feel the leanings of the populace and the people themselves is where the difference lies. It's not anything either party does. I could argue that there is a reluctance to accept that the right is just more attractive to more people in this country than the left, for whatever reason that may be.
There are studies that suggest and demonstrate that the less intelligent an individual is, the more likely they are to be attracted to right wing concepts, and vice versa. Right wing concepts offer simple, direct and mentally effortless explanations to otherwise complex questions that may have otherwise required serious consideration, and this is attractive to many.
Like Farage pointing people's gazes at immigration to deflect from the Tories and the super rich ruining the country. Look how many are into that? It's basically hopeless at this point. The country just isn't producing enough individuals with the wherewithal or concern to critically analyse and understand these things. It's all about waves and trends it seems.
posted on 4/7/24
The real debate should be the voting system
Labour are about to get their biggest majority in history and only the second in history to the Whig party with just 39% of the vote which was less than Corbyn's 2017 total who lost
posted on 4/7/24
When will people realise:
Neither red or blue
Have a _____ clue
2*
posted on 4/7/24
comment by Emperor Kami (U9880)
posted 1 minute ago
The real debate should be the voting system
Labour are about to get their biggest majority in history and only the second in history to the Whig party with just 39% of the vote which was less than Corbyn's 2017 total who lost
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That's some paradox right there.
posted on 4/7/24
comment by 1 Father- 1 Love - 2 Reds (U13312)
posted 51 seconds ago
When will people realise:
Neither red or blue
Have a _____ clue
2*
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Out of interest, what do you think Reform would have done, or would do going forwards, which is radically different from the Tories?
posted on 4/7/24
comment by Critical Supe Theory (U1282)
posted 1 minute ago
comment by Emperor Kami (U9880)
posted 1 minute ago
The real debate should be the voting system
Labour are about to get their biggest majority in history and only the second in history to the Whig party with just 39% of the vote which was less than Corbyn's 2017 total who lost
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That's some paradox right there.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
i should have said the highest in labours history and 2nd highest in uk history
posted on 4/7/24
@RR, agree with pretty much all of that. I was just pointing out how limited the left-wing electorate is in terms of the policies that would be tolerated by the money men.
As for raging (in my case), if only. At least that would suggest a degree of energy that might yet be redirected for better use.
Unfortunately, though, my pessimism with regard to the medium term future has just sucked any such energy and enthusiasm for change out of me. The larger problems we face, as I see it, are of a systemic nature. While measures for clawing back some of the social advancements that have been lost in recent decades might serve to kick the can for a few years more, to me they're little more than cosmetic measures in the grand scheme.
Maybe I'm wrong, and the sensible thing is to try to buy enough time for our kids' generation to find more lasting solutions, and alleviate some suffering in the process. In fact, these feeblest of hopes are the main reason I keep voting - but as sad as it is, I have very little faith left in humankind.
posted on 4/7/24
comment by RB&W - He kicked lumps out of them (U21434)
posted 13 hours, 48 minutes ago
comment by Busby (U19985)
posted 3 hours, 43 minutes ago
comment by Irishred (U2539)
posted 3 hours, 41 minutes ago
If I was voting it would be green/independent
How anyone can vote Tory or even worse reform hurts my brain
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I'd hazard a guess that those with wealth, pensions and anti immigration agendas will vote Tories or Reform.
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I know plenty of people with wealth and pensions who wont dream of voting Conservative or Reform. Thats like saying only poor people vote Labour. Most people in the UK are thick. Poor or wealthy.
FFS Busby you and your blue rinced geriatric friends gave us Liz Truss. You dont know what you are talking about really do you?.
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My friends or myself are not Tory members, so no we didn't vote Truss in.
I also won't be voting Tory, if that helps.
However it's fairly obvious people with wealth come out of a Labour run government poorer. They'll tax pensions (getting rid of the 25% tax free lump sum), they'll tax inheritance, they'll increase council tax, they'll remove free TV licence for pensioners, they'll increase duties.
I've always said I don't mind paying more tax if it's well spent. However, I don't trust any of the existing candidates to do that. Government spending is appalling, I've seen it.
Let's be honest, this Labour regime isn't anything ground breaking. They've a bunch of targets in their manifesto that are unachievable without making more money from taxpayers.
I won't argue that Tories are any better though, because they aren't.
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